


Haven't Found A Way To Kill Me Yet

by anna_chronistic



Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Schönberg/Boublil, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Anxiety, Backstory, Bullying, Canon Era, Foreshadowing, Gen, M/M, More tags to be added, Pre-Canon, personality changes, southern france, tuberculosis
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-02
Updated: 2019-02-25
Packaged: 2019-06-14 08:41:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15385002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anna_chronistic/pseuds/anna_chronistic
Summary: In which Joly is stronger than he thinks he is.





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Joly's friends find out something about him that caught them by surprise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm trying to write more canon era fics (although history isn't really my best subject :P). Comments are much appreciated!

**June 2, 1832**

Matthieu Dominique Joly was very easy to make fun of. In fact, he was the easiest target by far out of all the members of Les Amis de l'ABC. From his southern accent to his small height to his quirky personality, he ended up being the butt of many jokes. But Joly loved jokes and knew that it was all in good fun.

Upon arriving at the musain, he encountered Grantaire, Bossuet, and Courfeyrac. On the table was a bottle of Islay whiskey, a liquor so awful-tasting that even Grantaire wouldn’t want to drink it. They had to be playing some sort of game, because no one would drink that voluntarily.

"Hello, Joly" Grantaire greeted him. "Would you like to join us? We're playing a game that your dear Lesgles is losing horribly, resulting in him having to take punishment shots of this Islay whiskey. A 32 ounce bottle from Scotland."

"Ounces? What is that in mililiters?" Joly asked, sniffling slightly.

"I haven't a clue. I am rather awful at math," he said.

"The Scottish and their dabn units. Why cad't they just use the betric system?" Joly said in a southern accent that was even harder for his central-French friends to understand than usual.

"What the hell did you just say?" Grantaire chuckled. "I swear, I can never understand a word you southerners are saying."

"The-Scottish-and-their-damn-units. Why-can't-they-just-use-the-metric-system? Imperial-units-don't-make-any-sense-at-all," he said in a stilted manner, over-enunciating to be dramatic. "You know what I mean but pretend you don't understand."

"Whatever you say, mush-mouth," R teased.

"No, really. I think I am ill. And I'm not just imagining it this time," Joly whined.

"Sure, Jolllly," R said sarcastically. "Every time there is some event in the near future, you coincidentally happen to be sick. You know the deal: just go to Enjolras and look sad."

Joly was a bit hurt by what Grantaire said. Surely he wasn't a slacker who just made up ailments at his convenience. He frowned, his long eyelashes fanning his large doe eyes, looking as forlorn as a sniffling puppy.

"Hell, you could get two days off with that look," Grantaire teased.

"Maybe you'll cheer up once you play this game," Courfeyrac proposed. "It's fairly easy to win. We go around in a circle and say things that we have or have never done. We all answer yes or no if we'd done said thing, and whoever is the odd one out loses."

"Okay, I will go," said Joly. "I have woken up in a park before. Have any of you?"

All of them except Bossuet indicated that they have, and Bossuet was rather disappointed at having lost again. Now, unfortunately, it was his turn to ask the question next.

"Okay, I really hope that some of you share this trait with me. I have never snuck into a private party," he said anxiously.

After Courfeyrac said that he had, Grantaire and Joly exchanged mischievous glances.

"I am so sorry, Lesgles. But Joly and I have snuck into quite a few private parties," Grantaire said regretably.

"Damn it, I knew I should have said something else," said Bossuet. He took a shot of the peated liquor and cringed. "This tastes like dirt."

"Okay, I'm quite certain we all did this," said Courfeyrac. "Have any of you faked being sick to avoid going to class?"

Everyone raised his hand. Everyone except a certain bald 29-year-old.

"Ha! I knew it, Joly!" Grantaire pointed an accusing finger at Joly.

"Don't say that, R. The fact that I find mechanical physics boring has absolutely no correlation with my hypochondria, I swear!" Joly said, blushing a little before blowing his nose lightly.

"But I think that Laigle's losing of this game has some correlation with his awfully bad luck," Courfeyrac remarked.

Bossuet was on an awful losing streak, as he was the odd one out in nearly every question. He was the only one who had never woken up in a park or snuck into a private party. So much for being good.

"Shit!" Bossuet cursed under his breath.

"I don't understand. You're the most truant of all of us," Grantaire said.

"I know I am, but I still lost on a technicality," Bossuet explained. "I have made excuses to skip class, but I haven't specifically pretended to be sick. I made up an elaborate story about having a child, and now I'm in too deep. By the way, can you pretend to be my kid, Joly?"

"Are you _kid_ -ding?" Grantaire joked.

"Joly is short, and I look like I'm at least 41. Additionally, our Jolllly is a very good actor. He very well might me able to pass as my son," said Bossuet.

"Anything for you, Laigle de Meaux," Joly smiled. "I'll even drink the whiskey with you this time, just out of morbid curiosity."

The two of them take the shot together, and Joly's face contorts in disgust. "You were right. This is horrible!"

Finally, it was Grantaire's turn. Surely he could come up with a scenario where no one would be the odd one out.

“Has anyone else besides me been slapped?” Grantaire exclaimed.

Bossuet surprisingly indicates that he has not, while the other three men indicate that they have. Lesgles had lost again, 0 for 4.

“Wait, what?” Bossuet said, shocked.

“Pity to be you. Now take another shot of that infernal whiskey, Baldilocks!” Grantaire laughed.

“No, not that,” Lesgles said. “Joly got slapped!?”

“That is right, my friend. I most certainly did,” Joly said with a mischievous grin on his face. Bossuet looked concerned. He couldn't imagine his easygoing, petite friend getting in a fight.

“I can’t believe this. Who the hell did this to you, Joly? Would you like me to beat him up?” the bald man asked.

“I am not sure you can do this now because that was during a fight that happened ten years ago,” said Joly.

“But why would someone even slap you in the first place? You’ve got a whole lot of explaining to do, young man,” said Courfeyrac.

“I’m two years older than you, Courfeyrac,” Joly remarked.

“Oh, I always forget that,” Courfeyrac said.

"You must tell us the story of how you got slapped," said Grantaire. "I need to know the context of this."

"Alright I will, but it's a very long story."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The title comes from the opening line of the song [Rooster by Alice In Chains](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0FAosDi4XA)
> 
> Also, please forgive me—I'm soooo bad at exposition.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Joly and his friend try to forget about their bully and have fun at the beach.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm bacccc. Sorry I haven't updated in a long time :P

**July 20, 1820 Hendaye, France**

Hendaye is a rather idyllic town in the southwest of France. The climate there is more forgiving than the northern parts of France, because Hendaye is a coastal town that borders Spain. So close, in fact, that the Jolys' closest neighbors (the Trujillos) lived in a different country, in the town of Irún, Spain.

15-year-old Matthieu Joly was often accompanied by his friend, Esteban Trujillo. Summer vacation was a nice temporary break for the two friends, both small for their ages and often picked on at school. Spanish-born Esteban Trujillo was not that adept at speaking the French language, and other students teased him relentlessly for the way he talked. Joly, who was decent looking but had horribly crooked teeth and an annoying high-pitched voice, was also a fairly easy target for bullying.

But now that school wasn't in session, they were less likely to be seen by their peers. Or so they hoped.

They were walking by a steeply sloped hill by the sea when they heard a voice.

"Hello, Hideous" a voice said. Jacques Favreau.

That not-so-friendly greeting was addressed to Joly. He knew that because that had been his nickname for quite some time (it was probably because of his teeth, no doubt). Once another student found out his last name and realized it meant "pretty", he began calling Matthieu Joly by its antonym. The name stuck, and Joly would be surprised if someone actually called him Matthieu.

"We've no time for your antics right now. May you please just leave us alone, Jacques?" Joly asked.

"Give me a franc," Jacques bargained.

Joly reluctantly gave him the money, which Jacques immediately hurled off the steep hill as far as he could.

"You're so stupid, Hideous! I can't believe you fell for that," the red-headed boy taunted.

"And you are _malicioso_. You can't just go stealing people's _dinero_ ," Esteban said in a mix of Spanish and French.

"And you're so dumb that you can't even talk," Favreau said to Trujillo, even though that was far from the truth. No one knew or really cared that Trujillo was gifted in mathematics and physics, because they just made fun of him for the way he spoke. They always assumed he was dumb because he could not speak French as well as the others. Joly, who spoke to Trujillo in both Spanish and French, was hurt that his friend was constantly berated.

"Well you uhh..." Joly couldn't think of anything to say back to Favreau.

"You're so short that you could commit suicide by jumping off a bed!" Favreau cut Joly off.

"That is not how kinematics works," Trujillo retorted. "You'd have to jump off a _mesa_ to achieve a final _velocidad_ high enough to kill you. A _mariquita_ wouldn't die if it fell off a bed. So who's the stupid one now?"

"I'm sorry, what? I don't speak babbling idiot language."

"You know what I mean, but pretend you don't understand," Esteban stated plainly. And before things could escalate, Esteban and Matthieu slipped away quickly by running down the hill towards the shoreline.

~~

Like many children who grew up on the coast, Joly and Trujillo were fond of swimming, wearing old clothes that their parents wouldn't get upset if they ruined. The ocean was also a place where the two enjoyed playing all kinds of dangerous, unsanitary, and poorly thought-out activities. This day, there were many pieces of driftwood scattered on the beach, probably from a shipwreck not far away. Esteban spotted one in the water and saw that it floated.

"Come look at this," he said to Joly. "It's like a miniature boat."

Esteban picked up a piece of driftwood and swam a few meters from the shore (with all his clothes on except his shoes) to where the waves were. Joly followed suit. Once they saw a wave coming, they used the floating piece of wood to ride the wave. Joly had ridden waves before, but never with a makeshift flotation device.

"That was superb," Joly was impressed. "This driftwood allows one to ride waves so much further."

They swam further out in the water just in time for a particularly high wave. When the wave broke, Joly grabbed onto the near end of the board and rode the wave to the shore. Meanwhile, Esteban slung himself over the driftwood, got on his knees, and stood up. He was standing up for about five seconds.

"You're a genius!" Joly exclaimed as they got to shore. "You must teach me how to do that."

Esteban placed his piece of driftwood on the sand and got on it.

"When the speed picks up, get on your knees. And then at the very end, stand up sidewa—" Esteban was demonstrating this bizarre skill to Joly, but momentarily lost his train of thought.

"Mateo—I mean Matthieu—look over there," he said pointing north towards a baby seal on the shore.

"I do not know the French name for it, but it looks like a water puppy," he said, trying to come up with the best description of the animal that he didn't know the name of. "You know what I am talking about, right?"

"Ah yes, I know exactly what you're referring to. The French name for this animal is _phoque_."

"Thank you, Matthieu," said Esteban.

As they got closer to it, Joly realized how cute the creature was.

"You're right, it does look like a water puppy," Joly said, petting the harbour seal pup as if it were a household pet.

"Alright, let's get you back in the water," Joly said to the seal. It was small enough for him to carry and put back in the water. The harbour seal promptly swam away. Joly was glad to see the seal enjoying the ocean, as he and Trujillo both liked animals.

" _Adios, perrito_ ," Joly said.

~~

Even after Joly got home, that nickname he was called earlier that day was still at the back of his mind. So there he was in front of a mirror, trying to push his front teeth together.

"What the hell are you doing, Matthieu?" his older sister Angelique asked.

"I'm fixing my teeth, obviously," Matthieu said.

"Your hands are covered in sand. You might try washing them first."

"I haven't the time to go out to the well and get fresh water to wash my hands."

"Well, you could use water from your soaking wet clothes," his sister said. "And besides, pushing your teeth together will never work. There is really nothing you can do about it."

"I wish there was, because Jacques Favreau keeps teasing me about it," Matthieu sighed. And then he realized that he got sand in his mouth, but that did not really bother him.

"Don't worry about him. He'll be in jail soon anyway," Angelique quipped.

"Eugh, you're probably right. I'm going to go change my clothes and play the piano," Matthieu said, roughly clapping his hands to get the sand off instead of washing them.

He went over to the piano in the foyer and started practicing, but he wasn't particularly good at it. Joly experienced the struggle that one with small hands often has while playing the piano, as his fingers were accidentally hitting keys that were adjacent to the right notes. And his father, who was formerly a musician, had some opinions about that.

"Who wrote that song?" his father asked.

"Ludwig Van Beethoven," Matthieu said.

"Why don't you let him handle that, okay?" M. Joly replied with gruff laughter.

"Your hands are too small to play the piano properly," said his mother. "Perhaps you should be a surgeon."

Matthieu Joly scoffed at the extremely low likelihood of that ever happening. He did not think himself talented enough to be any type of doctor.

Ironically, however, he wished that one was there the next morning, because for the first time in a long while, Matthieu became ill.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> malicioso=mean  
> dinero=money  
> mesa=cliff  
> velocidad=velocity  
> mariquita=ladybug  
> adios, perrito=goodbye, puppy


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Joly's illness gets worse, and he's faced with some shocking news.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There are a lot of jump cut scenes in this chapter, but it's a backstory, so I guess it's allowed???

**July 22, 1820**

Matthieu Joly had been sick with a low grade fever since the previous day, but he thought nothing of the fever. Joly rarely got sick, and when he did, he never complained. And his parents never worried too much about him either, because they knew that their boy was healthy.

There were never any serious outbreaks of diseases like there were in larger cities. The most concerning was scurvy among sailors who journeyed along the coast, their bleeding mouths looking very macabre to the average civilian. But clearly the Jolys were no sailors. Jermaine was a musician and Elaine a seamstress.

Despite the fever, Joly did not think himself unwell enough to just stay at home all day. He managed to make it to the Spanish side of the beach, where he saw Esteban. The tide was low and there wasn't much going on except for a person, perhaps a fisherman, riding on a small dinghy. From Joly and Trujillo's point of view, they could see that the boat had cast a shadow through the clear water.

"That boat looks like it's floating," Joly pointed out. "Imagine traveling, but without a road. That's rather atypical now that I think about it."

"I want to be a sailor," Esteban said out of the blue.

"Okay," Joly said for lack of better words.

"Think about this: you are not confined to the narrowness of the streets. You don't have to worry about the _caballos_ getting tired. I could cross the Strait of Gibraltar to Ibiza and see _mi familia_ or even go to a different continent!"

"Whatever you do, don't end up like whoever crashed this boat," Joly said, pointing out the driftwood on the beach that looked like it came from a shipwreck.

"I promise that will not happen," Esteban said. "Do you have any plans of crashing a boat in the future?" he joked.

"No, I want to be an actor. Or a scientist. I'm not exactly sure which type of science though," Joly said. "I'm indecisive."

"Will you be able to decide whether or not you want to ride these waves?" Esteban jokingly asked Joly.

Joly knew that he must have been talking about his driftwood-wave-riding-and-standing-up shenanigans. But Joly was too tired to do whatever Esteban was doing with the driftwood and the waves. He instead decided to take a nap on the sandy shore, although lying down in the hot sun was probably not the best thing for a fever.

"No, I'm going to take a nap," Joly said, and he soon fell asleep.

~~

Joly woke up to a familiar brown-haired boy tapping him on the shoulder and telling him to wake up.

"Still here, Matthieu?" Esteban said, both amused and relieved.

"Oh, damn," said Joly. "How long have I been sleeping here?"

"Three hours."

"Three hours?!"

"Indeed. I didn't want to wake you up, so I went home. Two hours later, I came to your house and looked for you, thinking you would be there. When I went to your house and saw that you weren't there, I came back to _la playa_ because that was the last place I saw you."

"Thank you for finding me, Esteban," Joly said.

Joly needed to get back home as soon as possible, so he ran, or rather attempted to run, up the steep hill east of the beach. But he was out-of-breath and coughing within seconds of trying to traverse the hill. Joly was not particularly adept at sports, but it was unusual for him to get this tired this quickly. The coughing continued after the hill sprint and during his walk home, which felt a lot more arduous than it should have been.

**August 19, 1820**

A few weeks later, Matthieu Joly's illness worsened. Joly had a low-grade fever for four weeks now. He also had a short, dry cough that was annoying at first, but was now far more enervating four weeks in. The usually-energetic teenager was constantly lethargic and had lost some weight. By this time, his family was concerned.

"Well I've been watching while you've been coughing, and we think this is something serious," his father said. "You have not gotten any better in weeks."

"Perhaps this is pneumonia?" Mme. Joly inquired.

"It cannot possibly be pneumonia; it isn't even winter," Matthieu's father said, perplexed.

"Then what is it?" she asked.

"I do not know!" M. Joly said.

Matthieu was barely awake while he listened to his parents trying to diagnose him, but it was mostly pure guesswork for them.

"You won't have to worry about what disease I have if it goes away. This should end soon, shouldn't it?" Matthieu said with a bit of optimism. But that optimism was soon undercut by a fit of coughing. Joly grimaced in pain, revealing blood-stained teeth. It looked as if he had been kicked in the face. Once she saw her son bleeding from the mouth, Elaine's heart sank: she recognized it as a telltale sign of scurvy.

"We have to get you to a doctor as soon as possible!"

~~

The nearest hospital was in Irún, so the Jolys had to cross the border. It was there that they met Doctor Martínez, who would hopefully put a stop to whatever was ailing Matthieu. Since Matthieu and his sister Angelique knew Spanish the best, they (or rather just Angelique) spoke with the doctor.

"My brother has scurvy," Angelique cried. "He's even bleeding from the mouth. Will he get better, doctor?"

"Don't be worried, mademoiselle. We can't be sure that it's scurvy just yet. What are your other symptoms, Matthieu?"

"He's feverish and tired all the time and coughing," she answered for her brother. A disconcerting look fell upon doctor Martínez's face.

"His other symptoms might indicate that this is something other than scurvy," the doctor observed. "May I see your arms, monsieur?"

Martínez examined Joly's arms and noticed nothing out of the ordinary, except that his arm was unusually thin. He then parted Joly's hair and looked at his scalp. Joly did not have the slightest clue why the doctor was examining his hair.

"There is no bruising on the skin nor any bleeding of the hair follicles, so this is not scurvy," doctor Martínez said with a defeated tone in his voice. Matthieu found this strange. Would a doctor not be happy if they found out that their patient was free from a disease? If he didn't have scurvy, wouldn't that be good news?

The doctor looked right at Matthieu once he reached his conclusion.

"The good news is that you do not have scurvy. The bad news is that you have the consumption."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [bleeding hair follicles is a symptom of scurvy](http://www.health.state.mn.us/divs/hpcd/chp/cdrr/nutrition/docsandpdf/VitaminCfactsheet.pdf)


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Long time, no update! I've been pretty busy with school/teaching, so I'm not able to write that often. Also content warning for near death experiences.

**August 20, 1820**

Joly is in hospital care after recently being diagnosed with a disease that he had never heard of. He did not know what caused it or what the potential repercussions of it were, but he still had slight hope for the future, thinking this might be something he could look back on later. But in the moment, he was in very much pain, could not breathe, and could barely move without trembling like a leaf.

"Oh, Matthieu. What are we to do?" Madame Joly said, holding her child close.

"I don't know," Matthieu drearily responded.

"How long does it take to recover form the consumption, and are there any treatments that expedite it?" Monsieur Joly asked. "We'll pay whatever you want."

"I am not looking to get paid, monsieur. My goal is to keep him alive long enough for the disease to run its course. There were various treatments that have been previously used on consumption patients, like Iceland moss tablets, but we now know that to be ineffective. Unfortunately, there aren't that many effective treatments for the consumption. All one can really do is wait it out. The time it takes to subside is around two to three months," he paused solemnly. "For those who survive," he said lowly. There were concerned looks on Elaine's and Jermaine's faces.

Doctor Martínez pulled Matthieu's parents aside. "80 percent of people who show symptoms of tuberculosis die of the disease. The chances of children this young surviving this are even lower."

"He is fifteen," madame Joly reluctantly corrected.

"Oh dear," the doctor said under his breath, now realizing that Joly was far too thin for someone aged fifteen.

"He is stronger than he seems, doctor," Monsieur Joly said. "But should he not survive this, we would like to spend as much time by his side as possible before he passes," he said in tears, realizing how futile the odds were against his son.

**August 27, 1820**

The process of waiting out the disease sometimes involved taking opiates to manage the pain. On one occasion, doctor Martínez measured Joly's heartbeat at less than 70 beats per minute. His breathing and heart rate were slow, his pupils contracted. Joly looked semi-conscious, at most. His sister Angelique asked if he was okay.

"This type of opiate is a downer," the doctor explained. "Its main purpose is to quell fever and reduce pain. His fever is mostly gone; he is just passed out now."

But as he started waking up, they could tell that something else was wrong. He was in the same room with the doctor, his sister, and his parents, but did not seem to respond to or recognize them. He kept thrashing and crying and saying "Oh my God, oh my God!" Joly seemed terrified.

"What is wrong, Matthieu?" Joly's sister asked, holding his hand.

"Morphine usually calms people down, but in high doses it could bring hallucinations," the doctor explained. "I must have miscalculated the dose!"

Joly coughed, splattering the white pillow with maroon blood.

"I've been shot!" he cries.

"No, you haven't been shot. The blood is from..." she couldn't continue. It broke her heart having to explain to her brother that he was hallucinating and coughing up blood.

Joly had not before been an anxious person; this was the first time he had truly been afraid of something. He was hyperventilating, as if he were running away from whatever he was hallucinating.

"Please do not panic, Matthieu! That will obstruct your breathing," the doctor said.

But Joly could not breathe, and was sweating and shaking like someone with mercury poisoning. The others' outlooks for Matthieu Joly's future were grim.

**August 29, 1820**

The Joly family and Doctor Martínez did whatever they could to keep Matthieu alive long enough to outlast the consumption. But their efforts proved futile, as Joly's condition deteriorated.

He was incredibly weak, slipping in and out of consciousness. He could not stay lucid for more than a few seconds at a time. Joly knew the end was near, but did not know exactly when. He wanted to give his family some parting words before he passed away.

"Goodbye, I love you," he said, just barely audible to the others in the room.

And his eyes closed shut before he lost consciousness a final time.

**Sixteen hours later, at the morgue**

This was a particularly sad day at the coroner's office. On his autopsy table was the tiny corpse of a teen boy who had died of tuberculosis. His parents requested that he be autopsied should he die from the disease, so that there might be some sort of potential medical discovery that could prevent something like this from happening in the future.

The boy, whom he learned was called Matthieu, appeared to be asleep; his eyes were closed and there was still blood on his teeth. He was allegedly dead for sixteen hours, but was not in rigor mortis like a corpse would typically be. The coroner found that odd, and for some reason, he was not completely sure that the boy was dead.

Galvanism was a method that some coroners used to determine whether someone was really dead that involved shocking the face. The coroner got some copper probes that had been connected to a perpetual electrofor. He applied the probes to the boy's face to see if there were any muscle contractions. To his utter surprise, the corpse twitched, opened his eyes, and jolted up.

"Ah!" Joly winced as he felt a shock to his eyelids.

"What the hell?! You're alive!" the coroner said in disbelief.

Joly, rightfully confused, examined the unfamiliar place and determined that he had been abducted. He was alive indeed, but still weak and in a great deal of pain.

"Where am I? Please, monsieur, can you take me back to my family?" he said.

"You are in an autopsy room. We presumed you have died of the consumption," the coroner explained.

"Oh," Joly said, somewhat relieved that he hadn't been kidnapped. "How long was I out for?"

"Sixteen hours," said the coroner.

"That is a new record," Joly said to himself.

"Please tell my family that I live," Joly said to the coroner. "This miscommunication must certainly be something they would be glad about."

**Meanwhile, at the mason's shop**

"We have lost our little boy," Madame Joly said to the shop owner. "And we are looking to buy a gravestone for him."

"We plan to have him buried next to his great-grandfather," Monsieur Joly said. He handed the mason a piece of paper that said the words they intended to have engraved in the gravestone.

"I am very sorry for your loss," the mason said. "I shall have it ready by the 31st of August."

"Thank you, monsieur," Angelique said in tears.

**Late evening of August 30, at the Joly's house**

There is a knock at the door. Angelique answers it, expecting it to be the landlord or one of the Trujillos. But it is an unfamiliar man who had taken a cab all the way to their house.

"Hello mademoiselle. I am here to drop off someone who lives at this residence," he said. And a blond-haired boy came slowly walking to the front door. 

"Matthieu!" she said in elated surprise. She did not hug him, as he still looked ill and weak.

Joly's parents run to the front door to see their son again, alive. Still ill, but alive.

"Oh, Matthieu. We thought we had lost you! How on earth did this happen?" his mother asked.

"It was the doctor's mistake for falsely determining me dead. And because of that, I woke up in the coroner's office. If the coroner did not electrocute me to determine if I was alive, I probably would not be here."

"That seems frightening," his sister said.

"That was not even the worst part. While my illness was at its worst, I could not distinguish from reality the horrible thing that I dreamt about. There is a horse that has three heads. The man riding the three-headed horse, he shoots me in the chest, yet I still live. He becomes angry and throws me off a cliff above the ocean. I keep falling, but I never land. The students at school are not going to believe this," he laughed.

"I know that seems all fun," said his father. "But you must stay out of school for at least a few months so that you may recover."

**September 1**

There is another knock at the door. It is not the landlord, the Trujillos, or a cab driver. It is the mason shop owner with a gravestone.

"Monsieur Joly, you forgot to pick up your son's gravestone yesterday," the mason said. He had a small stone that read:

_Matthieu Dominique Joly_

_5 April, 1805 - 29 August, 1820_

"I am sorry, there has been a misunderstanding. We got the news recently that was incorrectly determined to be dead," said Monsieur Joly.

The conversation about the gravestone caught Matthieu's attention. He saw that the mason had actually gone through with preparing his gravestone.

"That is fascinating. I want too keep it," said Matthieu.

The mason was rather dumbfounded at why Matthieu would want to keeps his own gravestone with an inaccurate date of death. But then again, he thought that kids these days of the Romantic generation were a strange bunch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- [Galvanism](https://www.sageandsavant.com/2016/06/03/history-of-galvanism/), or the process of using electricity to cause muscle contractions, was cutting-age science in the early 18th century. Scientist Luigi Galvani proclaimed that electricity was the force of life in 1791, and the technique even inspired Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. But the galvanism death test was more of an 18th century thing, so this might be anachronistic.
> 
> \- New research shows that [tuberculosis originated from seals](https://asunow.asu.edu/content/new-research-shows-seals-sea-lions-likely-spread-tuberculosis-humans) and other pinipeds.


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